So it turns out I’ve found a soapbox. Some things are just too stupid not to address. *clears throat*
It’s interesting, really, what counts as political these days. Apparently, writing books* and making films about any other kind of human being than just one demographical group, is political. Seeing how this group is very small compared to the other one, which is comprised of all the other categories of humans on this planet, I find it more than odd.
The group in question? Oh, it’s the straight, white, fully abled, cis male. (Cis is a latin prefix meaning “on this side of”. Cis male means someone who was born with a male body and identifies as a man.) You may argue that heterosexuals are not a minority in the world, and neither are cisgender people, or males. And no, they aren’t. Heterosexual people are in a majority to homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, and people of other sexual orientations. Transgender people, whether they are transwomen, transmen, genderqueer, or any other named or unnamed gender on the spectrum, are also a minority compared to cisgender people.
Regarding the male bit, the binary man is in a slight majority to the binary woman. The official statistics claim there are 101 men for every 100 women. These data aren’t likely to have taken gender spectrum factors into accountance, but they give a clue as to what the average ratio may be.
Also, we can probably agree that generally speaking, there are probably more fully abled people in the world, than there are disabled ones, even counting invisible disabilities like dyslexia, ADHD, anxiety disorders, and other neurological and/or mental health-related issues.
But then we arrive at the skin colour bit, and this is where things become interesting. White people only make up roughly 18% of the global human population. (Yeah, global. That includes countries like India and China and the whole African and South American continents. No, white people being a minority of the global population doesn’t mean white privilege doesn’t exist in your country.) From these 18% white people, now subtract [white] women, [white] transgender people, [white] non-straight men and [white] disabled men. I haven’t done the maths, lacking reliable data on several categories as well as the overlap between them, but just deducting the half that is — generally speaking — women, takes us down to approximately 9%.
Is is reasonable that writing about characters outside of this group is considered a political statement? Does it make sense that acknowledging the existence of more than 91% of the global human population counts as “promoting a political agenda”?
I think not. I will not buy into this “politicalness”. I’m writing diversity. I’m writing non-white characters and non-western cultures. I’m questioning and sometimes simply disregarding the binary, heteronormative templates. I’m writing disability and I’m writing mental health issues. This isn’t political — it’s plain, common decency.
*) I apologise for linking to a blog owned by a straight, white cis male, but maybe other straight, white cis males will listen to him, even though they won’t listen to the people he and I are talking about. I’m also guessing writers outside of this limited demographical group of straight, white cis men don’t receive this kind of shitstorm for writing diversity — simply because their work isn’t considered mainstream enough to be paid any attention. Which, again, is a symptom of this same old problem. Round and round we go.
